Are We Afraid Of Our Own Shadow?

“All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are. “( Robin Williams )

When, at the end of his life, Carl Jung was asked if there was a hope for humanity, his answer was:

“ Only if enough individuals on this planet do the inner Shadow work.

One does not become enlightened by imaging figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. “

What is – Our Shadow?

SHADOW represents our darker half – everything about us that we try to deny or hide from each others and our own self – hate, rage, shame, guilt, blame, fear, jealousy, envy, selfishness and so on…………………………….

From the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night, we put on emotional masks we feel we need to wear in order to go about our day, to be able to meet our professional and personal goals and – ‘live our dreams’…

In the meantime our parents are getting sick, our grandparents are dying, our children are getting bullied , we ourselves are going through divorces, our best friends are getting diagnosed with the cancer…….

Yet – ‘We are fine, life goes on’ – we keep on smiling…

Why do we try SO hard to hide and deny our true feelings?

Most of us were raised with the notion that children were to be seen and not heard, which implied a certain behavior standard, especially in the company of adults.

From the day we were born most of our care takers have praised us only when we were ‘behaving’. Light side of our personality was the only one accepted and celebrated.

We were shamed and/or punished as kids every time we felt scared, angry, jealous, sad – whenever we have ‘misbehaved’.

All our painful emotions were put in the ‘negative emotions’ box which we never felt safe enough to open and fully explore.

And because as children we weren’t able to express our thoughts, emotions, problems or conflicts by play, gestures, sounds or language – we then grew up into sad, depressed, angry, scared adults with fake smiles who always feel ‘FINE’.

By the time we have reached our adulthood, we got so uncomfortable with our negative emotions that we started doing ANYTHING to be able to run away from our shadow – whether that is by eating, drinking, taking drugs, having sex, watching TV, climbing mountains, internet surfing or practicing yoga.

The ‘most spiritual’ adults amongst us are trying to escape their shadow aspects by claiming and ‘proving’ the world they are Connected with The Source, and they always feel ONLY a pure love, light, selflessness and peace – and NEVER the negative emotions. :p

‘ Spiritual bypassing is the Art of using our spiritual beliefs to avoid facing or healing one’s painful feelings, unresolved wounds and unmet needs. It is a State of AVOIDANCE. Because it is a state of avoidance, it is a state of RESISTANCE. Spiritual Bypassing is the Shadow Side of Spirituality.’ ( Teal Swan )

But as our shadow is never too far and it keeps lurking behind even our brightest life moments – when the genie finally jumps out of the bottle – it is, unfortunately, too often – TOO LATE.

Too Late to Run Away and also Too Late to Fix our ‘sudden’ Problem.

We come to the stage of our life where we feel absolutely incapable to deal with our issues.

We then break down, mentally and emotionally.

We then get terminally or chronically ill.

And the worst about it – when our shadow strikes and our masks finally fall off – in this world which sells and promotes Happiness and Positive Focus – we NOW feel totally and utterly ALONE with our PAIN.

How can we practice owning our shadow?

We can start shadow work by accessing ALL our emotions, including the ‘negative’ ones.

We need to first acknowledge and accept the fact – No Emotion is Wrong or Bad.

To access our emotions best is to lie down, close our eyes, breathe deep and ask ourselves:

What am I feeling right now?

Where is that feeling / sensation / emotion in my body?

What is the reason I feel this way?

Who or what is making me feel this way?

When was the last time I felt this way?

When was the first time I felt this way?

Be PATIENT – allow what ever comes up and try to stay ( at least for a bit ) with your uncomfortable emotions ….!

Next step would be to notice and observe the ongoing patternsin our life that doesn’t make us feel good. This could be our frequent arguments with the partner or our strong negative reactions with our children or our parents.